Book Highlights - Babel by Gaston Dorren

Language is such an intimate possession, something that one possesses in the same measure that one is possessed by it. Language is bound up with the foundations of one's being, with memories and emotions, with the subtle structures of the worlds in which one lives. -- Alok Rai, Hindi Nationalism

Words of up to six letters must be easier to memorize than those of centerpede-shaped things that German, Russian and Turkish are so fond of.

Western linguists have a somewhat shameful tradition of generalizing about language on the basis of a smallish sample.

The 'one language, one script' idea is no sillier than the 'one language, one country' notion that had held sway in Europe since the rise of Nationalism in the late 1700s.